Coller secures Louisiana pension re-up

Coller Capital‘s latest secondaries fund has received the backing of a repeat investor.

Louisiana Municipal Police Employees’ Retirement System, which has $2.2 billion in total assets under management, approved a $25 million commitment to Coller International Partners VIII, general counsel Ben Huxen told Secondaries Investor.

The US pension, which invested in Coller’s Fund VII, has a 5 percent private equity target allocation. It was 1.5 percent exposed to the asset class as of April.

Fund VIII has been in market since April and is seeking $9 billion, according to Secondaries Investor data. Investors so far include City of Miami Firefighters’ and Police Officers’ Retirement Trust, which committed $15 million.

At the start of the year, Coller backed a $1 billion GP-led restructuring that involved Bahrain-listed Investcorp transferring six assets, which it had acquired on a deal-by-deal basis, into a new buyout vehicle.

In November, Secondaries Investor reported that Coller was the lead backer of a GP-led process on the $8.1 billion Thomas H Lee Equity Partners VI. It is understood that Neuberger Berman is also set to back the deal.

Coller is one of a handful of large secondaries players that came back to market last year including Ardian, Lexington Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, HarbourVest Partners and Blackstone’s Strategic Partners.